I'm no fan of 2e, but, even so, this is good news. If nothing else, it suggests that the 1e reprints from this past summer (which I did buy) sold well enough for WotC to be able to justify producing even more. Indeed, as many opined, I think it quite likely that the 1e reprints were a trial balloon to determine if there was in fact a market for reprinting reprinting older D&D products. I also think it provides a little more insight into the plans of the D&D product team at WotC, namely, they really are interested in winning back the fans alienated over the past few years as a result of 4e's botched marketing. If all these reprints stay in print I'll be even more impressed.

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I have been skeptical, if not downright dismissive, of WotC's attempts to appeal to old school gamers over the last few years, thinking them little more than shallow pandering. Recently, though, the company has given me a lot of reasons to think I may have been too hasty in my judgments. This is a case where I'd be quite happy to discover that my initial opinion was ill-informed and wrongheaded.

I will likely pick up Unearthed Arcana and some of the other late 1E AD&D stuff where my copy is either very poorly bound and falling apart or I lack a copy. This would include Monster Manual II, Oriental Adventures, the Dungeoneer's and Wilderness Survival Guides, as well as UA.

If they make hardcover versions of OD&D and Supplements, B/X, or the Cyclopedia / BECMI, I will flip my lid and definitely pick up all those.

I'm glad to see these too, even if I don't plan on picking them up myself. To me 2e has always kinda seemed underserved by the OSR for some reason. It's nice to see it getting some attention/promotion.

Now if they wold only do a compilation of the D&D Gazetteers, like maybe a boxed set ideally. I'd be all over that!

agreed -- the 2e books seem like the least sensible rerelease candidates so far. the cyclopedia is the obvious next step, i should think, though it will raise the question of what in the world you need 5e for (if that q. isn't inescapable already).

my new dream for 5e is: a box set with four little books: rules, dm guide (emphasis on writing and running adventures and encounters), monsters + magic(s) (really a worldbook, which is OF COURSE where magic belongs), and advanced options (including everything from the elegant 4e combat system to mass combat to gumshoe-style investigation to modern weapons to alternate magic systems).

in other words, a cyclopedia's worth of material in digest-sized books of the 4e Essentials form (folks like them).

then sell *alternate worldbooks* and alternate player's guides to extend, respectively, magic/materials/world stuff and character options.

"To me 2e has always kinda seemed underserved by the OSR for some reason."

presumably that's generational -- 2e was the time of cresting then declining popularity, right? and it was the first edition of d&d to arrive in a videogame-infested world.

also, the OSR (bloggers, basically, and forum discussants) is something like...200, 300 people, right? there's only a finite amount of attention there, and the loudest guys have OD&D and B/X and 1e fetishes. thatyou could literally survey everyone of 'stature' in the OSR and just ask them why they don't talk more about 2e -- if they haven't already answered the question a million times, for lack of new games to talk about.

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